The Grumman J2F2 Duck amphibian 1/54 scale

1/54 scale. Glenco kit #04101 originally issued as the ITC kit #3727-98 in 1958. One of the fledgling Grumman Aircraft Company's first successful military contract utility aircraft designs this model is completed as assigned to the U.S. Marine Corp VMS-3 based in the United States Virgin Islands about early 1940 based on a beautiful original color photo in a contemporary Life magazine article easily accessed on the internet. The kit is very basic with old technology molding and consequently many inaccuracies in the cockpit, landing gear, and other areas. Having been in my possession for many years I decided to build it for fun and to gain experience with rigging a biplane in anticipation for future more complicated models like the Wing Nut Wings kits. It was built with cockpit seat substitutions for the original crude lounge chair representations provided in the kit, a scratch built air intake, and EZ line fine and heavy rigging used to represent the flying wires.

The Duck cockpit and interior is quite interesting but the kit only includes an inaccurate cockpit floor and inaccurate represention of the pilot instrument panel. I substituted some instrument decals from the spares collection to provide a respresentation of a instrument panel and left it at that. All main colors are from the now discontinued Testors Model Master line; Aircraft Gray, Aluminum, Chrome Yellow. Significant staged masking and planning of paint application is needed due to the particular colors needed; especially yellow that has extremely poor coveage ability. Decals are the original kit Scalemaster decals included in the kit that survived many years of storage without deterioration. For biplane aircraft contruction will be greatly eased by use of a jig to align and hold the wings during mounting. This can be a commercial jig or one can fabricate a jig using foam core poster board or other inexpensive material as was done for this model.

As this was my first ever rigged model it required some research regarding rigging techniques and available products. I settled on EZ line, a product often recommended by modeling experts. It is very simple to use and manage but the one issue to be careful about is the line is actually rectangular in cross section and not round. Therefore twisting during installation will be revealed on close examination and under photographic enlargement. It's ok where the original aircraft flying wires are rectangular in cross section but an inaccurate representation where those wires are round. For round wires my preferred product line (after this build) is Infini rigging line that is made with a circular cross section. Maybe soon I'll feel ready to tackle a WNW kit. Carry on and enjoy your modeling. Remember it's supposed to be fun and not a high stress endeavor!

25 additional images. Click to enlarge.